The last thing I want on a Saturday morning is to be awakened at 6.30 by my mobile beeping on account of the telco network spamming me. Below is the Celcom sms:

Msg PERCUMA! dr Celcom: Jenaka ceria dr AJoke. Utk m'dengar dail *000 (PERCUMA). Utk ulangan, dail *008 (20 sen/panggilan). Utk m'hentikan servis, hantar AJoke OFF ke 25653.

[FREE message! from Celcom: Cheery humour from AJoke. To listen dial *000 (FREE). To repeat, dial *008 (20 sen/call). To stop service, send AJoke OFF to 25653.]

This same sms was once again despatched the following morning, a Sunday, at 8am and to date I've received it more than half a dozen times. I haven't replied 'desist' yet as I'm tracking how long Celcom will persist in its off-putting salesmanship if AJoke doesn't get takers. And besides, why would I want to subscribe when I'm inundated by uproarious real-life humour?

Take the side-splitting proposal of former premier Dr Mahathir Mohamad for the Nobel Peace Prize. Truth is stranger (and more hilarious) than fiction. Or Dr M on setting up a war crimes tribunal. "Victims turning perpetrators is a well-known syndrome both in individuals and in groups. Repressive rulers often exhibit a similar pattern. Both Mahathir bin Muhamad of Malaysia and Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe appeal to the memory of colonial repression while engaging in repressive acts of varying severity."

In his 2004 book The Bubble of American Supremacy , George Soros singles out for special mention, in the context and excerpt above, our ex-PM and the urm, retired statesman's err, good friend (yes, no, maybe?) Mugabe. For an autocrat whose name is often mentioned in the same breath as the Zimbabwean dictator to brazenly agitate for convening this kind of international court of justice is a barrel of laughs indeed.

And if I wish to be further entertained, all I have to do is pick up a newspaper. Guaranteed to have me in stitches is any interview given by the MCA president where he insists his party is advancing the interests of the Chinese community through its effective role in government. The wonderful gift of born comedians is their natural talent for deadpan: Ong Ka Ting makes his oft-repeated claim with an absolutely straight face ... every time.

So Celcom, I'm afraid that in light of such stiff competition, your April Fools initiative doesn't hold a candle.

Gadgets and gimmicks

Small businesses are sometimes harassed by the neighbourhood triad for protection money. 'How much do I have to give you to leave me alone?' the shopkeeper will ask gangland enforcers. How much do I have to pay to stop Celcom spamming me?

"Own a Motorola V3xx mobile phone at an unbelievable price! Just bid by dialling *128# and get into the excitement of Celcom Big Deal now!" Sender: CELCOM. Again, no thank you. The cellphone I'm presently using is still serviceable even after it took a dip in the sea (oops, butterfingers) and I don't view the mobile as a fashion accessory that needs to be updated every three months.

Even my e-mail z.sunday@yahoo.com (feedback welcome) which is free doesn't subject me to as much junk mail as the paid Celcom line. It is an unwarranted expense and inconvenience to have to sms content providers to stop beeping their ticker tape parade of promotional offers, and other products and services which piggyback on Celcom.

Please bear in mind that cellphone users are wary of replying to unknown senders in case their line is hijacked for hidden charges. Celcom using its subscriber pool as a promotions mailing list, and thus subjecting customers to such a risk is in breach of a 'fair practice' client charter. It is wrong to put the onus on users to cancel a service we never asked for, like AJoke.

The mobile is arguably one of the most innovative inventions since sliced bread. Technology in itself is neutral; it's what we do with it that makes it good or bad. And unfortunately, Malaysians have earned a global reputation for innovative misuse of technology such as credit card cloning and in facilitating scams like sms fraud [this warning is posted at ATMs ( photo )].

Technology is also progressing so fast that that bigger and better, or smaller and slimmer as the case may be, models are always in the market. The technology that enables slick mass communication add the mobile now to this category is also a delivery system for mind-numbing trivia and its 'buy, buy, buy' encoding. This constant exposure to insatiable consumption features a high-gear materialistic society where the ethos is 'I want, I want it all and I want it now!'

In fact, the slogan to encourage tourists to come on a spending spree "The whole of Malaysia on sale" can be read as a painful and ironic double entendre. This frenzy needs to be funded and I believe the greed that fuels corruption, i.e. the buying and selling of favours a current hot button issue has its roots in runaway materialism.

Enlightened self-interest

I'm not suggesting that the man on the take is in it for small items like mobiles. There are of course are far juicier carrots to entice such people. And in Bolehland, rent-seeking is one of the symptoms of this hot pursuit to sustain the high life.

For the select group to enjoy their free lunch in the buffet coach on the gravy train called Crony Express (a piece of intelligent witticism contributed by a malaysiakini reader that AJoke can't beat), we have the seepages, layers of commission, inefficiency and shoddy standards which jack up true costs.

Reception of this critical message that the joke is on us Malaysians is obscured by deliberate background noise. This interfering static is generated by a media circus where the ringmaster insists that Malaysian are all "happy" and feel oh so good, and propaganda gatekeepers kick up a storm in a teacup over Barbie umbrella girls ('product ambassadors' in ad jargon) and their pan-Asian looks.

Slap away the buzzing diversion of being too busy and tired making money, and too busy and distracted spending it. Only then will many more Malaysians see that it is in their own enlightened self-interest to stop colluding in Bolehland baloney.

It is a vicious circle: quietly stomach the nonsense that goes on, chase money (which is never going to be enough because we are kept continually overpaying or our material wants and needs are stimulated to increase exponentially), run harder after money as prices and the desire for more 'things' escalate, suffer the crap further... It's debasing to buy into the notion that this cycle is inevitable and acceptable and part and parcel of living here.

Basic economics explains that the value of money diminishes when prices rise rapidly, and this devaluation is what we are looking at here and now. The price of gourmet cat food, I've noticed, has doubled over the last several years. Petrol prices know only one direction: up.

To reference our fond colonial cousin Zimbabwe, last May one hundred thousand dollars could buy a loaf of bread. Zimbabweans don't carry their cash in wallets, they need to use bags. Its debasement of coinage has seen the Mugabe government printing trillions of Zimbabwean dollars, and inflation now chalking over 1,700 percent.

When crap has accumulated to become a cesspool, local currency becomes about as valuable as Monopoly money. In Wonderland, Alice is running on the spot ever faster just to be able to stay in the same square of the chessboard. On a Monopoly board, the players would be stuck at "Do not pass 'GO', do not collect $200".

In Bolehland, I would recommend the ruling regime simply declare inflation illegal. Then the problem would automatically cease to exist, because the government says so. I'm joking? Can what.